1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to powder coating apparatuses and methods of applying coating powder onto an object to be coated and, more particularly, to a powder coating apparatus for applying a coating of resin powder, such as epoxy resin, onto an outer periphery of a stator of a rotary electric machine and a method of manufacturing a stator of a rotary electric machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, attempts have heretofore been made to provide a powder coating method wherein a voltage is imparted to an object to be coated, such as a stator or rotor of a rotary electric machine, and resin powder is sprayed onto the outer periphery of the object and then thermally set to provide an insulation coating (see Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2000-153218 (on pages 3 and 4 and in FIGS. 1 to 7).
By the way, during powder coating, the areas of the object, which are not to be coated, are protected by mechanical masking as proposed in the above-described related art. In such cases, it is probable for a slight clearance to occur between a masking member and an area which is not coated on the object due to a distortion in the shape of the object to be coated, resulting in the issue of being difficult to reliably achieve the powder coating only on a desired area.